ON GOLDEN F
EATHER
Unofficial ‘Clark County Zoo’ home to hundreds of critters
By Dean Lesar Cliff Johnson saw a news story one day last week about the extinction of 23 more species of animals from the planet. On his small game farm west of Spencer, he’s doing what he can to keep that number from growing any more.
More than 500 critters roam the enclosures at Cliff and his wife Laurie’s Golden Feather Game Farm, many of them of the feathered variety. But there are kangaroos there, too, and black buck antelope, lemurs, llamas, alpacas, oryx and a single coatimundi that’s in need of a mate. It’s an exotic animal sanctuary, this “Clark County Zoo,” as Cliff and Laurie affectionately call it, with a purpose of preserving creatures that don’t have any place in the wild anymore to call home.
Golden Feather is on the farm settled by the Oelrich family about 1919. Cliff’s grandfather first farmed it, and Cliff moved there as a toddler around 1960.
Raised on the dairy farm by his grandparents and aunts, he was always an animal lover, and his family might have guessed he’d turn it into an avocation someday. Instead of just having a goldfi sh in a bowl as a pet, young Cliff raised them and sold them to local pet stores. He caught some resident moths, and raised them for generations.
“When I was little, I watched anything that was alive and moving,” Cliff said. “I kinda had a fascination for living creatures. It just kind of turned into a passion for wildlife.”
After Cliff graduated from high school in the late 1970s, his attention was already on wildlife and what he might do to help it. The family farm was too outdated to continue as a dairy farm without major expenditure, so he began to transform it into a place where he could keep and breed various critters. He started with birds — pheasants and chicken and peafowl mainly.
A short time after meeting Laurie, she recalls talking to him about his bird collection and asked if he had thought about expanding to other wildlife. Little did she know, she says now with a grin, where that would lead.
Even as he began breeding birds, Cliff became aware of the plight of many species in the wild. He had read about white-eared and brown-eared pheasants, and found that they were all but extinct in the wild. Only populations in captivity remained.
“I said, ‘Well, something’s gotta be done about this,’” he said.
Cliff learned that the San Diego Zoo had recently procured some browneared pheasants from a zoo in Beijing, China, and he wanted to know more.
“I got on a plane and flew out there right away,” he said. “I was just out of high school.”
Through the San Diego Zoo and a breeder in Washington State, he was able to get his hands on some of the birds to bring back to Spencer. He’s bred them ever since, and now his farm is the main source of the species in the entire country. As few other breeders and zoos are interested in the species because they’re not particularly showy, and they have become extremely rare.
“Everything that’s out there is either mine or related to mine,” he says. “And that’s not a good thing.”
That’s because the birds become inbred, he said, and began to show traits such as crooked backs. Cliff tries to raise what he can, and sells any surplus to most any zoo that will take them. Unlike more flashy birds, like the golden pheasants he also has on the farm, zoos and game farms don’t make space for them.
“If it’s not big and spectacular, they’re ignored by a lot of the big zoos,” Cliff said.
But not at Golden Feather. It’s Cliff’s and Laurie’s mission to not only keep threatened species alive, but to let people know of their precarious existence.
“I started to realize there’s a real problem out there with a lot of these birds and animals just disappearing off the face of the planet,” Cliff said. “There’s no wild left for a lot of these animals and birds.”
Cliff said Golden Feather specializes in species that are “pretty much ignored by the larger zoos.” With each new species he decides to bring in, he delves into their history and their status on the threatened scale.
Another rarity at Golden Feather is Cliff’s herd of Scimitar-horned oryx. A handsome and muscular native of North Africa, the antelope species is gone from the wild, with some herds kept in Texas for hunting purposes.
The Golden Feather herd thrives in a partially wooded enclosure, with a dominant buck serving a harem of horned does. A new fawn just arrived last week, and the herd was standing watch over it as it lounged in the shade. In the next enclosure, a herd of black buck antelope darted and played in its grassy domain.
Cliff said even the captive numbers See ZOO/ Page 7
QUITE A STRETCH - Cliff Johnson hands a treat to ostriches on his Golden Feather game farm. The birds — which weigh as much as 350 pounds — are more than tall enough to reach over a six-foot fence.
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of oryx declined dramatically in recent years. Due to changes in federal regulations, no live oryx or even hunting trophies could be transported across state lines, so the hunting preserves had them shot off before they lost their value.
Those regulations have since changed again, but Cliff said the numbers have never recovered, As far as he knows, he has one of very few herds that are not kept for hunting. In fact, he will not sell any of his antelope for that purpose, but only as breeding stock. The same goes for all Golden Feather’s inhabitants.
Cliff and Laurie make their livelihood by selling animals, or by trading. The small group of lemurs housed in a converted corn crib, for example, came to Spencer in a trade with a zoo for some antelope. Whatever comes to Golden Feather is thoroughly vetted.
“I don’t get a new animal or bird in here until it has about two years of study,” Cliff said.
Finding time for that is difficult, what with at least 10 hours per day needed for chores such as feeding and watering, health checks/vaccinations, upkeep of the various pens and enclosures, and the annual “big round-up” of creatures to warmer indoor quarters in two barns.
Cliff works as a substitute custodian at local schools (he worked full-time at Spencer and Loyal for years before stepping back to give more time to the farm) to supplement the farm’s revenue, but he and Laurie have yet to find that eighth day in a week when they can get caught up.
Feeding alone is a major task, especially since 500 mouths of approximately 40 species make for a messy menu.
Last year alone, the Golden Feather menagerie went through more than 62 tons of feed — mostly grain and pellets. They also devoured 681 pounds of bananas.
“We buy more bananas in Kwik Trip than anybody in Spencer,” Laurie said.
“And I hardly ever get to eat one,” Cliff said.
Lemurs love the bananas, and since the Nilgai antelope favor the skins, nothing goes to waste. That’s important for a farm on a budget when food sources are not so easy to find.
“With a variety of animals like this, it’s very difficult,” Cliff said. “I chase all around the country for food. We’re just scrounging all over the place.”
Markets for the Golden Feather critters are also a volatile affair, with prices going up or down in a given year depending on factors ranging from weather to trends. Peacocks have been profitable lately.
“Right now, everybody wants peafowl,” Cliff said. “Everybody’s nuts for ‘em. We ship those chicks all over the United States.”
See ZOO/ Page 11
FROM DOWN UNDER - Laurie Johnson introduces a youngster to a kangaroo during a recent tour at the Golden Feather Game Garm. About 25 ‘roos live on the farm.
CLIMBING THE CRIB - A ring-tailed lemur climbs the converted corn crib enclosure in which it lives at the Golden Feather Game Farm. The Johnsons traded antelope to get some of the natives of Madagascar to their Spencer farm.
THE ORYX - A scimitar-horned oryx stands in a Golden Feather pasture. Both males and females of the species have horns.
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For unknown reasons, though, this was a bad year to rear ostriches. Cliff said he had only one fertile egg this year from about 20, and other breeders he has talked to across the country have the same story. A shortage like that will drive up prices.
“If you can’t raise it, everybody wants it,” Cliff said. “If you can raise it, nobody wants it.”
Each animal, no matter how much the Johnsons may like it, has to bring in revenue at some point. Cliff had a gazelle herd years ago, but when his breeding efforts failed, he had to move them along.
“Pretty much the animals have to pay for themselves,” he said.
When they do, however, saying goodbye can be difficult. Laurie recalls a particular kangaroo that she raised by hand from a baby, feeding it with a dropper, and holding it against her for warmth. Those animals need constant care, she said, and it’s impossible not to become attached.
“They go to church with us,” Cliff said of some of the animal babies.
“The trouble is, we get way too attached to too many things,” Laurie said.
Such an attachment helps serve Golden Feather’s overall purpose, though, to help species remain on the earth. They do that not only by rearing threatened animals, but by giving paid tours to bring awareness to their situation. That way, Cliff said, people won’t learn about species extinction until after it’s too late.
“That’s a tragedy. It’s a travesty,” he said of the recent news report he heard to the 23 new extinctions. “I think it’s a terrible, terrible legacy to leave our children and our children’s children an extinct animal. In order to get the awareness out there, you need to make the public aware of it.”
Cliff said he now hears from chaperones of youth groups taking farm tours that they recall taking the same tour years ago. He wants to get the ears while they are young to teach them how vital it is to preserve species.
“The kids will remember this as they grow up,” he said. “I figure it’s all worthwhile if one out a thousand kids that tour here do something for wildlife.”
PUBLIC EDUCATION - Cliff and Laurie Johnson lead paid tours of their Golden Feather Game Farm west of Spencer to help educate the public about the plight of endangered species.
